Author: ofopinions

1. Do not reply to comments. Who has the time? You already said what you had to say. And they’re asking for more? Why don’t they just like and share like normal people do?

2. Participate in the community as little as possible. Yeah, you need to reel those plebeians in by talking to them. It’s tough business after all, you can’t always rely on them accidentally landing up at your webpage (maybe pay someone to work on an algorithm that makes such accidents happen more often). But, only chat to promote yourself. Plug, plug, plug. Plug in comments on their blogs, by giving them a compliment or two, and then talking about yourself for the rest of it. Don’t waste time on their blogs because, who are we kidding, everyone knows that most aren’t that good.

3. Only Share, Re-Blog or Copy-Paste. Who says you have to make your own stuff as a blogger? It’s your blog, your space to do whatever you want. It can be anything. You could curate the best of the interspace. You could even pass it off as your own. You devil you. No, sorry, you Renaissance Man.*

4. Don’t Blog. Ah, the best way to be an authentic Bad Blogger. Just don’t do it. You’ll only get better at it if you do it. Why take the trouble? There are so many shows out there to binge, so many Facebook messages to reply, so much serious writing, photography, art etc. to do. Why waste your time on something no one will care about? Not even you? Save your special self for something else. Like Instagram Belfies.

My name is Amrita. And I am a Bad Blogger. I wasn’t always. Well, always isn’t too long, about mid-2014 onwards. I’ve ebbed and flowed as a blogger (sometimes you can’t separate the blog from the blogger. This is my arena, my garden of Eden where I regularly sow seeds of self-pity.) This year, mostly ebb. I’ve done all the above except no. 3, and I have some explaining to do.

First, I simply haven’t written much of anything in 2017. I’m a lifelong diarist, and even that has exited my life. I just can’t can bring myself to do it, most of the time. When it is work-related, I do it for the sake of doing it, without passion or inspiration. Recreationally, nah. Why bother? Do something else. Something easier. Find some other way to self-flagellate. Optimise on the number of things you allow yourself to hate about yourself.

Second, I just haven’t been inspired. I know, the most pathetic and ridiculous excuse anyone who presumes to call themselves a writer can give you. But, I just haven’t been feeling it, man. With Art and Pop in general. Ch-ch-ch-changes. I’ve just not been in a state to meander over light, frivolous things.

Third, I haven’t used WordPress much. I do more things on my phone now, and predominantly use my computer for work. I do read on the WordPress app whenever I can, but it’s not the best way to be really paying attention to something that makes your brain work more than a tweet or an Instagram photo. There’s no questioning the need for WordPress to have an app, but I’d rather read on a computer.

Fourth, I’ve just been a lazy ass. A lazy ass who couldn’t even be enticed by money, where she paid for the Personal Plan, and waited around to be paid for a book, that people don’t even read for free. I refuse to use the word failure, however. More like, “destined to be read when I write books people do read, so that they can assess how terrible/brilliant I was before I made it.”

I am Bengali. This week, we have the biggest event in the Bengali calendar, the festival of Goddess Durga. Therefore, I will probably continue being a lazy ass. However, in the festive spirit, I wish you passion, inspiration, dedication, genius and numerous readers in all your blogging endeavours. Do not do any of the things I do, and you’re sure to succeed in life!

*I do not mean everybody who shares, re-blogs etc. I mean those spammy ones, or the ones who plagiarise.

I sometimes wonder what it would be like to be a tyrant. This might have something to do with my recently binge-watching The White Queen, a TV show based on the War of the Roses, and particularly sympathising with the notoriously sympathetic King Richard The Third. Continue reading “Of Customer Service”→

Wouldn’t it be a relief, a release, however incredible the situation? You keep desiring to be rid of so many desires, because modern wisdom has convinced you that all want is evil, unless it is painfully got, and can only be justified by further suffering. That you must suffer for your health, for your happiness, because all other easy pleasures lead to more or a different kind of suffering. Ultimately, modern life is a choice between the good kind of suffering, and the bad kind of suffering. And no one knows for sure which is which.Continue reading “Of Appetite”→

First I thought it was a passing phase and out of nowhere, I found myself singing Daniel Powter. Then, a day turned into a few days. On Saturday I called it a “bad week”, as I shed a few embarrassing and uncharacteristic tears in public transport. Today, it’s ten days. Like any bad meteorologist, I hope my prediction is false when I say, “Seems like Hurricane Crapathy will be with us for a fortnight.”

It started with a dedication. We were on holiday in France. It was my first time there, and we spent most of it stuck in a hotel room, on account of getting sick from some terrible, as well as terribly posh, food. Mum was taking care of me, my sister Janey and dad. She was the only one who didn’t get sick, the only one who’d been there so many times that she knew what not to do. She was watching this show on a French music channel called C’est Pop. The French clearly fail their imagination when it comes to naming pop music shows.

Every writer at some point relapses feeling so called writer’s block. Writers are extremely sensitive by nature and they tend to think sometimes that they are not worthy Continue reading “On Writer’s Block”→